Force modulating tissue bridge

Inventors

Eaves, Felmont

Assignees

BRIJ Medical LLC

Abstract

Medical devices disclosed herein include pre-defined structures for dispensing forces onto a tissue plane in a living organism and are utilized to adjust spatial relationships, orientations, and mechanical forces in a patient treatment area. The treatment area may be a wound, an incision, or a surgically accessed area within a patient that includes oppositely disposed sections that heal more efficiently and with less scarring when force vectors of a particular magnitude and direction are applied to the treatment area. The medical device provides a structure that may be pre-stressed through planned deformation that develops desirable spatial and mechanical relationships along the tissue plane for alignment, compression, advancement, eversion, inversion, distraction, rotation, angulation, and the control or modulation of tension across the treatment area.

Core Innovation

The disclosed invention relates to a force modulating tissue bridge apparatus that directs forces onto tissue at a treatment area. The apparatus includes a tissue bridge having a flexible central section with opposite first and second sides, a first lateral section extending from the first side, and a second lateral section extending from the second side. The central section is flexible to allow the tissue bridge to have a predetermined configuration and a distortion-induced configuration, where the first and second lateral sections are farther separated from one another in the distortion-induced configuration than in the predetermined configuration.

The tissue bridge central section comprises elastic material configured so that the tissue bridge is biased toward the predetermined configuration. The central section further comprises a flexible arch, so that the tissue bridge can reconfigure between the predetermined configuration and the distortion-induced configuration while maintaining an elastic bias. In the distortion-induced configuration, separation between the lateral sections changes relative to the predetermined configuration, producing resultant forces directed onto tissue through the bridge geometry and material behavior.

A flexible sheet is included with an attachment zone configured to be connected to tissue. The sheet is beneath the tissue bridge and comprises a central section positioned between first and second lateral sections of the sheet. The sheet’s first and second lateral sections are respectively connected to the tissue bridge’s first and second lateral sections, while the sheet’s central section is disconnected from the tissue bridge’s central section, so that force modulation is achieved with the central regions uncoupled while the lateral regions remain connected.

Claims Coverage

The only explicitly provided independent claim defines an apparatus that directs forces onto tissue using a tissue bridge with a flexible elastic central section that reconfigures between predetermined and distortion-induced configurations and a flexible sheet with a disconnected central section coupled laterally to the bridge.

Overall, the provided independent claim focuses on a tissue bridge with a flexible elastic central section that reconfigures and changes lateral-section separation, combined with a flexible sheet positioned beneath the bridge whose central section is disconnected from the bridge central section while lateral sections remain connected.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications